In Reply to: Re: I should have known... posted by AbeCollins on October 18, 2004 at 12:23:05:
Yep, the cable company isn't offering digital cable to give you better picture or sound - they're doing it to compete with satellite - the digital signal affords them the opportunity to compress both audio and video, quality be damned, and then they can offer more channels, On Demand, broadband, and crappy 'CD quality' (yeah, 16/44.1 my arse) music feeds. Add phone service to the list, too.I have an HD TV, and I can easily see the jpeg compression in the digital TV channels (channels 2-99 are still analog, so a comparison is easy as some channels are duplicated). It is true that the analog channels have more noise, but the lack of compression gives the analog channels better resolution. The same holds true for the audio, although the difference doesn't seem as big there (except for the few channels that actually clip).
Make no mistake, the cable companies don't really give a crap about sound and picture quality, although they may say they do in some of their ads. What they really care about is getting their service in as many homes as possible, and that strategy is what all their tactics cater to. If this wasn't the case, the sound and picture might actually be in synch on my HD feeds, and the customer service reps might have actually cared on the numerous occasions that I've called to point this out to them.
If you're happy with the channels you get via the plain old cable and no box, by all means stick with it. Digital cable has some neat features, but also a wagon-load of problems (many of which would only bother nuts like me, but I don't stray far from the Asylum).
-Pete
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Follow Ups
- The Cable Co. - pburant 14:39:49 10/18/04 (0)